What Lies Beyond the Light
by Mr. Garbanzo
Summary: When Master Yen Sid discovers an ancient text dating back to forgotten times before the Keyblade War, Sora and Riku are sent off once again to find the "Door to the Light" and open its long-sealed doors. Sora believes that opening the door will solve all their problems-but it's never that easy, is it? [Takes place after an alternate version of KH3D; there may be spoilers!]
1. Prologue: The Long-Forgotten Door

**What Lies Beyond the Light**

**Prologue  
**_~ The Long-Forgotten Door ~_

The mouse King walked up to the front door of the old tower that never seemed to be in the same place twice, quickly knocking a few times before returning his hand to his side and waiting patiently for the place's only permanent resident to answer. He had been summoned by the wizard Yen Sid, who seemed to be rather insistent that he come as quickly as possible; Mickey wasn't sure what his old master wanted to tell him, but he figured that it had to have been pretty important.

A few minutes passed before the door slowly swung open, the flowing blue robes of the wizard swishing about as he invited Mickey inside. The two silently headed up the stairs toward the highest point in the tower, where Yen Sid's study was located; when they got there, the first thing that caught the little mouse's eye was an ancient scroll laid out across the table, with several books and papers piled alongside it.

"Gosh, what's all this?"

"This scroll is the reason I have called for you," Yen Sid said, taking a seat at one end of the table and motioning for Mickey to join him. "It contains an account of ancient history, a time even before the destruction of the Keyblade War."

Mickey gasped, his mouth hanging open for several seconds afterward as he looked over the yellowed paper of the scroll in disbelief. How had something so old survived? As far as he knew, no coherent records _from_ the time of the Keyblade War had ever been recovered, let alone _before_ it. The very thought of it was something he had never imagined.

"_Before_ the Keyblade War?"

"That is correct," Yen Sid answered, "If I have translated the ancient runes correctly, then this scroll dates back to a time before the Realm of Light was fragmented into the many worlds that exist today."

He stood up, pacing away from his seat and toward a nearby window.

"Or, I should say… before what we know as the Realm of Light was fragmented."

"What we know as the Realm of Light? What do you mean?"

"That is what I have called you here so suddenly to tell you. If what the scroll says is true, then the realm in which your world lies is not the Realm of Light we have always believed it to be."

He paced back over toward the table and pointed toward a section of the scroll, which Mickey immediately focused his eyes on. Among the indecipherable ancient writing, the mouse noticed a very clear image of a tall, ornately-decorated door standing on a stone platform, with light pouring out from it in every direction.

"Furthermore," he continued, "The scroll mentions the presence of a sealed door, much like the one that blocks the way into the Realm of Darkness… a long-forgotten door, at the end of the only path to the true Realm of Light."


	2. A Voice from the Past

**What Lies Beyond the Light**

**Chapter 1  
**_~ A Voice from the Past ~_

"You've never piloted a Gummi Ship before, huh?"

Riku looked at the controls with a look of annoyance on his face, not sure exactly what he was doing wrong. It was bound to happen sooner or later—after all those years of being better than him at all sorts of things, it was almost inevitable that a day would come when Sora would find something that he didn't have any trouble with but Riku failed miserably at. And unfortunately, it seemed that today was that day.

"Like this," the younger of the two boys said, scooting in front of Riku and operating the Gummi Ship's control panel like he had been doing it for years. Before long, the ship began to lift off, leaving behind the world below and drifting ever upward. "See? It's not that hard."

"Yeah, sure… after you've done it a million times."

For a moment, Sora paused, glancing up at the ship's ceiling and seeming to be deep in thought. Then, he turned back toward Riku and shook his head.

"I don't think it's been a million," he said, "Maybe a few hundred or so, but…"

Riku laughed slightly, then sighed.

"Heh… it's a figure of speech."

Only a few minutes passed before the Gummi Ship had sped off into space and the world they called home had become little more than a blue speck in the distance. The ship's navigational systems picked up the presence of many worlds around them as they flew, but so far they had not spotted the one they were looking for. It was a world that neither of them had ever visited, a world devastated by the violence of the Keyblade War; unlike worlds destroyed by the Heartless, which could be restored by some mysterious means that neither of the two boys fully understood, this world was forever doomed to be a lifeless shell of its former self, little more than a gravestone for the thousands that had passed during the war.

King Mickey had told them that this world, as the epicenter of the Keyblade War, would probably be a good place for them to start in their search for this mysterious door that Yen Sid had learned of during his study of ancient scrolls. The King had apparently been there before, sometime long ago, though he hadn't given them many details about what led him to visit such a desolate place. He had only mentioned that, thanks to its position within the realm, he had reason to believe that the Door to the Light might be located somewhere nearby.

"So, how much longer does that navigation thing say it's going to be?"

Sora glanced down at the control panel, then pushed a few buttons and shifted his attention over toward one of the holographic displays that popped up from it. Among the cloud of information in front of him was a map of the realm, with their destination clearly marked by a symbol resembling two Keyblades clashed together.

"Shouldn't be too long now," he said, at first trying to read the rapidly-scrolling information but quickly giving up. "Uh… I think so, anyway. It doesn't look too far away on that map…"

Riku groaned.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I just saw 'estimated time: 2 hours' scroll across that thing."

The silver-haired boy was beginning to think that Sora's skill at piloting the ship might be not much more than luck; he wondered briefly if Sora had actually done the piloting at all before, or if that responsibility had fallen to Donald or Goofy during their previous adventures. Sora, noticing for the first time that the Gummi Ship actually did have an 'estimated time' display after all, just laughed nervously and stepped away from the control panel after setting the ship on autopilot. With the way the two of them were with machines, it seemed like it would probably be safer that way.

"Okay," Riku said, "So what did you guys do to pass the time in here? You know, when you were flying around with Donald and Goofy all those times."

Sora paused for a moment and then reached under his seat, pulling out a few old boxes that seemed like they had probably been there the entire time the ship had been in use. He looked over them for a few moments, then looked back over toward Riku.

"Well, we were usually busy shooting down Heartless ships, but—"

"Sora," Riku interrupted, "Heartless don't use ships."

"Huh?"

"They don't need any help getting from one world to another. Those things you saw… they weren't ships, they were just really big Heartless."

Sora scratched his head for a moment.

"Huh. I guess that makes sense… I never really thought about it much before."

While their Gummi Ship moved steadily onward toward its destination, Sora and Riku passed the time by playing a variety of board games that had been stowed away inside the old box under the seat. Sora had tried each of them out a bit during his travels with Donald and Goofy, though they were usually interrupted by the constant threat of Heartless and the ship's warnings that they were coming up on yet another unexplored world; as a result, the spiky-haired boy couldn't remember a single game that had actually been played through to the end, so in a way these diversions were just as new to him as they were to Riku.

The next thing they knew, nearly an hour and a half of their estimated two-hour trip had passed by without any complications, and Sora had actually managed to see exactly what went on toward the end of several of the board games, for once not interrupted by the sudden appearance of spacefaring Heartless to shoot down, uncharted worlds to explore, or anything else. In fact, the void around them seemed surprisingly empty and featureless compared to what Sora was used to; there were no ruins of abandoned interspace highways or floating wreckage of damaged spacecraft, only dark emptiness and the occasional asteroid which the ship's autopilot was more than capable of avoiding.

"Looks like we're almost there," Riku said, putting the set of dice and game pieces back into their box before tucking it away under his seat. "I can see a world coming into view… looks like mostly rocks and clouds from here."

"Yeah," Sora said, staring out through the ship's cockpit and getting his first look at the world they were now approaching. "I guess this is that Keyblade Graveyard place that King Mickey told us about, right?"

"The ship's navigational systems seem to think so… so I'd say that's a pretty safe guess."

The Gummi Ship moved in for landing, slowing to a stop in a large, flat area. After checking the ship's computer systems for any unusual readings, Sora and Riku each hopped out of the vehicle and took their first steps on this new and unfamiliar world. The first thing they noticed about their surroundings was the fact that it was unbearably hot; the sun bore down on them as if it was _trying_ to roast them alive, and Riku silently thanked whatever deities may have been listening for the fact that he had decided to cut his hair a bit shorter than usual not long before the trip.

After a few minutes spent wandering the empty landscape, Sora and Riku decided to split up, with Riku taking off down a rocky hillside while Sora chose to head through a canyon with high rock walls on either side. As he walked through the area, high winds kicked up swirling clouds of sand which forced Sora to shield his eyes with one hand as he walked in order to avoid being completely blinded. The flying grains still stung his skin on impact, but thankfully not much of his skin was exposed, and aside from the occasional blast of sand in the face this was not much more than a minor hindrance.

Riku, on the other hand, was not having a problem with the wind at all; the region of the world he had chosen to explore seemed to be completely still, though the mountains visible in the distance made it clear that it had not always been so peaceful. He spotted several with enormous gouges out of their sides, resembling the result of powerful explosives; other land formations he could not explain at all, though he had enough sense to know that they couldn't have possibly been carved into those shapes naturally. What he was now seeing were the scars of the Keyblade War—the conflict so devastating that it eventually resulted in the original World being split into the many smaller ones that he knew, with even those only surviving intact through the efforts of seven individuals with hearts of pure light much like those of the Princesses of Heart. At least, that was what the legends said; it had been so long since the war itself had ended that nobody could know for sure.

For a moment, Riku paused; he briefly caught wind of an unusual scent in the air, a combination of the familiar scent of darkness and something else, something metallic that he did not immediately recognize. He quickly figured out that this was not his actual sense of smell but rather his ability to detect the powers of others in the area, something he had gained over a year ago during his journey upward through Castle Oblivion. For some time, he had thought that he had lost this power after the lingering presence of Xehanort's Heartless had been purged from him, but apparently that was not the case—he simply had not encountered a scent powerful enough to trigger it until now.

"_Wait,_" Riku thought, suddenly pausing in mid-step and turning back in the direction where he had sensed the unknown presence. "_That scent… it's coming from where Sora was headed!_"

Sora stood with Keyblade at the ready as the mysterious armored figure before him stood up to his full height, supporting his weight with both hands on his own massive golden Keyblade. The unknown warrior paused for a moment, muttering something to himself in a voice that seemed to echo within the suit of armor as if it were completely hollow; he then turned his attention toward Sora, taking a step back and raising his Keyblade at the sight of the boy.

"You… you aren't the one I chose," he said, his voice now much clearer though still followed by a metallic echo. "Why do you have the Keyblade?"

He then braced himself for battle, a deep snarl echoing from within the armor for just a moment before he shouted out a name that was all too familiar to the spiky-haired boy.

"Xehanort!"

The warrior suddenly lunged at Sora with a powerful overhead strike, his opponent barely managing to block despite using both hands. It was clear that whoever this mystery man was, he was incredibly strong; after blocking a series of blows, Sora attempted to tell him that he wasn't Xehanort, but before he had a chance to get a single syllable out, he was slammed in the gut by the flat side of the heavy Keyblade and sent flying backward, rolling to a stop on the dusty ground before hopping back to his feet.

"Wait! I'm not—"

Once again, he wasn't able to finish before another attack came; Sora narrowly ducked as the warrior's Keyblade shifted shape into a segmented whip-like weapon and lashed out in a wide arc, rolling to avoid several more lashes before looking up to see that he had reverted the Keyblade to its usual shape and was charging at him once again. This time, Sora struck before his opponent had a chance to, swinging his Keyblade upward into the taller man's chest and catching him off guard for a moment. This opened him up to further attacks, and Sora took the opportunity to rain down a rapid flurry of blows onto him, eventually managing to shove him backward with enough force that his metallic boots left gouge-marks behind in the rock below them. When Sora leaped forward for another attack, however, the armored Keyblade-wielder swiftly raised his own weapon and blocked before flinging the boy backward into a nearby boulder with a powerful counter-strike.

"Sheesh," Sora groaned, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing his sore back. "I don't think I've ever fought anyone this strong by myself before… I can barely even keep up!"

He paused for a moment as his opponent slowly walked toward him, wisps of flame-like orange energy beginning to rise up from his Keyblade as he approached. Sora braced himself, then began to build up his own energy as well; whoever this armored fighter was, he wasn't listening to reason, so there was no other choice but to fight at full power. The two flew at each other, Sora surrounded by white light and the mystery Keybearer cloaked in orange as they rapidly clashed Keyblades dozens of times in rapid succession. Sparks of energy flew off from the two locked blades in all directions, and then Sora nearly lost balance as his opponent suddenly pulled back… before lunging back toward him with another powerful blow that the boy was completely unprepared for, sending him smashing clear through the already-cracked boulder that he had been thrown against earlier. The armored warrior charged forward and jumped high into the air above the spot where he had landed, preparing for what could only be a finishing blow. Sora was still dazed from the last hit he had taken, and had no idea what was coming.

Apparently, his opponent didn't either—instead of slamming into Sora's head, the heavy Keyblade clashed against another one that abruptly interposed itself between the two fighters. Sora glanced up to find that it was Riku who had saved him from almost certain death, bracing his wing-shaped Keyblade with both hands and struggling against his opponent's overwhelming strength. Eventually, however, Riku triumphed; with purple energy swirling up around his entire body, he shoved the armored warrior back with all his might and sent him toppling to the ground.

"Are you okay?", he asked, turning and looking down toward the spot where Sora was still lying on the ground. "This guy's strong, whoever he is… you're lucky you lasted that long on your own."

"Tell me about it," Sora said, rubbing his head slightly and then standing up with a bit of effort. "I didn't even see that last hit coming…"

The two stood side-by-side, each shifting back into their usual combat stance, but instead of making any further moves their armored opponent seemed to stop suddenly, lowering his Keyblade slightly as if something had changed his mind.

"You," he said, removing one hand from his Keyblade's handle and pointing straight at Riku. "It's you… that boy from that island world. But… what was…"

Riku paused for a moment, his eyes widening. Suddenly, a flood of memories came back to him all at once, memories from over a decade ago that he had all but forgotten. When he was only five years of age, a stranger had appeared on the island where he and Sora always used to play when they were kids… a stranger holding the very same Keyblade that he now saw before him. Though he could no longer remember the mysterious man's name, he knew very well that he and the armored warrior who had given Sora such a fight were one and the same.

"My name?", the silver-haired boy said, lowering his Keyblade as a gesture of peace between the two of them. "It's Riku. Riku Hashimoto."

Sora glanced back and forth between the two of them, a stunned look coming over his face for a few moments. He then seemed to realize something, causing him to look even more stunned than before.

"Riku… do you know this guy?"

He nodded.

"Yeah," he answered, pausing for a second before continuing. "Well… kind of. You probably don't remember… there was one day when we were kids that someone from another world came to our island. I wasn't really supposed to tell you about it, but…"

He glanced over to the armored figure, who nodded slightly in response as if indicating for him to go on.

"…I guess since we're all here, it couldn't have stayed a secret for much longer anyway."

The armored figure touched his Keyblade to the ground and returned to the kneeling position he had been in when Sora had first come across him, causing Riku to pause just before continuing the story he was about to tell. He turned to face the armored man, taking a few steps toward him and unsummoning his own wing-shaped Keyblade in a flash of pale blue light.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," his echoing, metallic voice said. "I have nothing left… nothing but my hatred for Xehanort. There's nothing more I can do for you."

Sora ran over to the armored man, his Keyblade disappearing in a flash as he approached him and clasped his shoulders with both hands and shook him slightly as if attempting to force him out of his depressed state in the only way he knew how.

"Maybe we can help _you_," he said, staring into the featureless visor of his helmet. "We're searching for this sealed Door to the Light… if we can make it open up again, something good's bound to happen!"

"And about Xehanort," Riku added, walking over to his friend's side, "According to Master Yen Sid, he's somehow returned now that his Heartless and Nobody are both gone… maybe we could help you settle the score with him."

The armored man's head turned, glancing from one boy to the other. He then reached up and fiddled with some sort of device on the side of his helmet, causing the dark visor to retract into the metal that surrounded it. Sora and Riku both gasped and took a step back, reflexively shifting their hands into Keyblade-summoning position out of shock; the armor was completely empty.

"There," he said, the voice still echoing inside the armor even with part of the helmet no longer present. "Now you see just how much Xehanort took from me. Not just my body but my heart, my home, my master and father… all of my friends, gone. What you see here is all that's left of me now."

He raised one hand from his Keyblade and returned the visor to its usual place, then clasped it tightly back against the handle of his weapon, exactly the way that Sora had found him. Exactly the way he had stood for eleven years.

"There's no way the two of you could ever do anything to make up for all that Xehanort has taken from me," he said, lowering his head. "Continue on your journey if you want… but don't think for a minute that I will have any part in it."

With that, the armored stranger thrust his Keyblade deeper into the rock beneath his feet, causing a dome of orange-hued energy to surround him. Pointed chain-shaped patterns flashed across it for a few moments, and when Sora attempted to reach out toward the fallen warrior with one of his hands, he found that he was completely blocked by the barrier. He briefly considered raising his Keyblade in its direction in an attempt to reveal its occupant once again, but stopped as he heard Riku's footsteps moving away from him, heading back in the direction of the Gummi Ship.

"Hey, wait for me!"

Sora's shoes squeaked as he took off running across the cracked rocky ground, quickly catching up to Riku and then slowing to a more moderate pace. The two walked through the canyon Sora had passed through before, with the spiky-haired boy occasionally glancing back to see if he could still catch a glimpse of the armored Keybearer who had refused their aid.

"There's nothing we could have done," Riku said, almost seeming to read his friend's mind. "He's been here far too long for anything a couple of strangers say to change his mind at this point."

Sora turned toward him, frowning slightly.

"Do you think we'll be able to come back and help him someday?"

Riku shrugged.

"Well, if destroyed worlds can be restored, I guess anything's possible… but I don't have any idea how we'd go about getting someone's body back."

He paused for a moment, remembering that he himself had been in a similar situation at one point—forced out of his own body by Xehanort's Heartless. Could this have been what happened to this forgotten warrior as well? This train of thought continued, leading to the inevitable question of whether, by destroying both Xehanort's Heartless and his Nobody, they had actually doomed this forgotten warrior to his current state. Yen Sid had mentioned that the Xehanort that returned may not be the same one they were used to seeing—could this mean that the body that Xemnas had been created from was not his own but the stolen body of this past Keyblade-wielder? He decided not to bring up this possibility with Sora; after the disappointment of failing the Mark of Mastery exam and the lingering effects of whatever had happened to him during their time in the Realm of Sleep, he figured that another depressing thought was the last thing the spiky-haired boy needed.

"Hey," Riku said, turning to Sora as they both approached the Gummi Ship, "Where do you think we should look for this door next?"

Sora scratched his head, staring up at the bright sun overhead before turning back to Riku.

"I dunno… Mickey didn't really give any other suggestions after this place."

He thought back for a few moments, remembering his first adventure away from home. The area where the Door to Darkness was located wasn't on any world, but in a black void even beyond the place where fragments of fallen worlds gathered to form a strange new one overrun by Heartless. If the Door to Light was anything like its darker counterpart, maybe they were looking for it in the wrong kind of place?

"Wait, I've got an idea," he said, causing Riku to stop for a second and turn back toward him with a somewhat incredulous look on his face. "We could just fly around in space and look for it out there. You know, like how the other door was just sitting on this big rock floating somewhere?"

Riku smiled slightly; though the way he had put it into words had been a bit silly, Sora actually had a pretty good idea. If the Door to Darkness had been floating in a dark zone of space, then couldn't the Door to Light work the same way?

"You know… I think you might have something there," he said, hopping into the ship's cockpit. "Of course… this means we won't be able to use the autopilot from here on."

Sora sighed; once again, the ship's dreaded manual control system had reared its ugly head. Though it had sounded simple enough at first, it was starting to look like this trip might just turn out to be harder than he had expected.


	3. Opening

**What Lies Beyond the Light**

**Chapter 2  
**_~ Opening ~_

The Gummi Ship drifted aimlessly through space, only barely under the control of the two teenagers inside it. Thankfully, the area they now traveled through was empty enough that the occasional uncontrolled spin or sudden swerve didn't actually cause any harm; even so, they both hoped that they would find this Door to Light they were searching for as soon as possible so they could go back to using the ship's autopilot again and not have to worry so much.

Within a few minutes of continued awkward flight, it seemed that their wish might just come true. The ship's controls lit up in an unusual way and some sort of alarm started going off; it was one that Sora had only heard once or twice in all his journeys, and upon hearing it he immediately bolted from his seat to get a closer look at the display.

"What's going on?", Riku said, grabbing the controls that the other boy had left behind. "What's the ship say about that alarm?"

"It's picking up really high traces of… something," Sora said, glancing back to Riku and then toward the screen in front of him. "It's not darkness… but what else would…"

The alarm began to blare at an even more rapid pace, cutting Sora off in the middle of his sentence; looking out through the ship's cockpit, he and Riku both could now see something approaching in the distance. At first, it appeared to be a point of light off on the outer edges of their field of vision, much like a far-off world; as they came closer and closer, it began to look more like the light of the sun, shining out from some unknown source in the absence of anything resembling an actual sun.

"That light," Riku said, staring blankly out through the window with a shocked expression on his face. "Could that be… the door?"

Before either of them could wonder what the source of the strange light was, it was upon them, surrounding the Gummi Ship in a blinding field of white all around. The ship's sensors went nuts, alarms that neither of the two boys knew existed going off as all sorts of red warning signals flashed to life on the main screen. Riku attempted to regain control of the ship's systems, but nothing he did seem to have any effect; the Gummi Ship continued to spiral helplessly toward the source of the blinding light. Sora rushed to his side and mashed away at the control panel's buttons at random, hoping to trigger _something_ that might help the ship stabilize, but still nothing seemed to work.

"We're gonna crash!"

And then, just as suddenly as they had lost control, everything stopped. The ship's engines spontaneously shut down and it slowed to a stop, skidding against some sort of platform floating in space that resembled a long road leading up toward a thirty-foot-tall golden door. The two boys just stood there and blinked for a few moments; their ship had miraculously landed on the road to the very place they had been searching for, without even losing a single Gummi Block in the process.

"That's it… it has to be."

"Yeah," Riku said, staring out at the door at the end of the road before them. It appeared to be closed, though the blinding white light they were now surrounded by seemed to be coming out through the crack down the middle and at the bottom. "The Door to the Light..."

The two climbed out of the ship, taking a few careful steps on this unfamiliar territory where they had landed. It reminded them both of the area immediately surrounding the Door to Darkness, though the stone that composed the path below them was a bit different, resembling solid, polished marble rather than rough mountain rock torn from some lost world. Much like that dark place that surrounded the other door, this void filled with light seemed to have its own atmosphere, or at least some sort of strange magic was at work that negated Sora and Riku's need for breathing; neither of them knew much of such things, so it could have just as easily been either one.

"Not even a day of searching and we've already found it," Riku said, walking closer to the golden door and staring up at it. "I can hardly believe it was this easy."

"Well, there's still one thing left," Sora said, summoning his Keyblade to his side with a flash of light that was almost completely drowned out in the illuminated zone around him.

Riku turned his head toward Sora and nodded, summoning his own Keyblade in a flash of pale purplish-blue that stood out much more clearly from its surroundings.

"Yeah," he said, "We've found the door… now we just have to open it."

The two raised their Keyblades in unison, standing about a dozen feet back from the sealed Door to Light and pointing the weapons directly at the golden monolith, Riku's wing-like blade at the left side and Sora's silvery metal key at the right. Energy swirled up around the two weapons, forming a perfect sphere at each of their tips before bursting outward into a thin ray of light that flew into the door. The entire shape was rapidly covered by a thin layer of translucent energy, the colors of the light from both Sora and Riku's Keyblades blending together into a swirling mixture of the two before merging together into pure white. And then, slowly, the enormous doors began to swing open.

"Finally," Sora said, lowering his Keyblade and smiling as a golden light radiated out from the long-sealed realm on the other side of the door.

He glanced over to Riku, expecting to see a similar expression on his face, but instead was surprised to find that the silver-haired boy was staring blankly into the light as if frozen with fear, with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. His Keyblade slipped from his hands and disappeared upon contact with the stone below, and seconds later his eyes slipped shut and he slumped to the ground unconscious.

"Riku!"

He turned and went to his friend's side, shaking him in an attempt to return him to consciousness once again, but nothing he did seemed to help. Worse yet, the familiar sound of dark portals opening up all around him made it clear that he had a bit of a fight ahead of him; as he looked up in the direction of the Gummi Ship, he immediately spotted dozens of Heartless of all shapes and sizes appearing from the swirling black and purple holes in space, slowly creeping toward him.

"_No,_" he thought for a moment, "_They're not after me… they've got to be after the door!_"

Sora stood once again, readying his Keyblade and running out to meet the incoming Heartless swarm before they could get anywhere near either Riku or the Door to Light. He wasn't sure what the Heartless might be after within the door, but it was the only explanation he could think of for why they had suddenly made an appearance right after he had opened it. A cluster of Shadows twitched their antennae, a few Darkballs spun and squirmed in midair, and several Large Bodies swung their hands from side to side for just a moment before the entire group lunged forward to attack.

The spiky-haired boy charged to meet them, leaping high into the air and slamming the blunt edge of his Keyblade into a Darkball. Throwing the creature off balance with this strike, he then climbed up onto it and plunged the tip of his weapon straight down so that the large Heartless plummeted into several smaller ones below, crushing all of them on impact and causing them to explode into bursts of darkness. He blocked a swipe from a Neoshadow's claws, then countered with a powerful swing that split the creature in half before backing away a bit to avoid another series of slashes.

For a few moments, he built up a swirl of bright yellowish energy around the tip of his Keyblade; as the Heartless mindlessly moved forward to fill the gaps he had created in their ranks, he let loose with a powerful blast of light that soon split into many smaller bursts, each seeking out a single Heartless and destroying it instantly upon impact before piercing through and clearing out several more of the shadowy creatures before finally fading away. No matter how many Heartless he destroyed, however, it never seemed to make much of a difference; still more came, and between the brief clash with the armored stranger earlier and the battle he was currently waging against a seemingly-endless stream of Heartless, Sora was beginning to grow tired.

"How many of these things are there?!"

He breathed heavily, barely deflecting a burst of flame from a Red Nocturne hovering overhead before swinging his Keyblade upward and destroying it. Several more floating Heartless, coming in all different colors, launched a variety of magical attacks in his direction, but he grasped his Keyblade by the chain and spun it rapidly in front of him, deflecting the attacks and cutting through the Heartless effortlessly. Or, at least, it _looked_ effortless—by this point, Sora only barely had enough strength left to continue avoiding the creatures, and each attack dodged or blocked came closer to hitting its mark than the last. Finally, one of the Heartless succeeded in hitting the Keybearer; a Wyvern flew toward him in a spiral, headbutting him in the chest and sending him flying backward. Sora crashed to the ground just a few feet away from Riku, groaning slightly as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position and then hopped upright again. The Heartless in front of him had nearly doubled in numbers since he had been sent flying; he had to have taken out more than a hundred already, but still they just wouldn't stop coming.

Just when it seemed that he really might not make it back home in one piece, the sound of footsteps against the stone behind him reached his ears. He didn't have time to turn and see who was there before he heard the sound of someone snapping their fingers, and instantly the entire Heartless swarm was consumed by a massive pillar of flame that erupted from the ground below them, swirling around in place for several moments before rapidly dying down and leaving little more than a few flickering embers behind. The dark portals that the creatures had come through had finally closed, and no more Heartless appeared; whoever his mysterious savior was, they seemed to have actually succeeded in stopping their onslaught.

"Ah, so _you're_ the one who finally opened the door… Sora."

The spiky-haired boy turned, wondering how the stranger knew his name… though his voice did seem oddly familiar. When he finally got a look at the man's identity, he nearly dropped his Keyblade in shock. Though he now wore unfamiliar white robes with golden trim around the edges and some sort of pendant around his neck, Sora immediately recognized the tall, thin man with bright-red hair so spiky that it made his own look almost flat in comparison.

"What the… _Axel?!_"

"Actually, it's Lea," the spiky-haired man said, grinning slightly. "But I guess Axel's fine, too."

He took a few steps out from the other side of the Door to Light, walking over toward Sora and stopping just a few feet away from him. He then glanced down to the unconscious Riku on the ground for just a moment before returning his attention to the younger of the two boys.

"I guess you're wondering how I got here," he said, pacing back and forth a bit. "Isn't that right? I mean, it's not every day you bump into somebody who's supposed to be dead."

"Nah, I think I know what happened," Sora said, glancing up at the taller man as he paced around beside him. "Master Yen Sid said that Xehanort came back somehow, now that his Heartless and Nobody are both gone, so... I guess I must've found your Heartless somewhere along the way, too."

Lea laughed.

"Wow, you're sure catching on quick," he said, leaning down slightly and looking Sora right in the face. "You sure you're the same Sora I bumped into before?"

"Well, yeah," Sora said, scratching his head slightly. "Who else would I be?"

Lea waved his hands slightly, standing back up to full height and pacing over in the direction of the door a bit. He then turned back toward the boy, grinning once again.

"Hey, just making sure," he said, shrugging. "Some crazy stuff's been going on lately. You never know when somebody you thought you knew could turn into your worst enemy just like that."

These words made Sora think back to his failed Mark of Mastery exam, when he had somehow gotten separated from Riku by… well, he could only assume that all of the black-cloaked phantoms he saw in the Realm of Sleep were nothing more than Xehanort himself, taking advantage of the bizarre nature of the dream-world to take on the shapes of others. He couldn't remember exactly how it all ended, but apparently Xehanort had tried to take possession of his body; if Riku hadn't caught up to him when he did and somehow freed him from Xehanort's grip, he could've been doomed to the same fate as the mysterious armored warrior they had met in the Keyblade Graveyard, if not worse.

"You okay, kid?"

Sora shook himself out of his thoughts, finding that Lea was once again leaning over toward him and staring him right in the face.

"Yeah, I was just… thinking about something, that's all."

"Wow," Lea said, eyes widening slightly. "You're _definitely_ not quite the same kid I met before. Whatever happened to just charging blindly on into things and saving the deep thoughts for… never?"

Sora laughed slightly, though it was a bit forced; truth be told, he really _had_ charged blindly into things a bit too often in the past, and now he was finally beginning to realize it.

"Hey, I only ever charged _half_-blindly into stuff!"

"Eh, close enough," the redhead mumbled, shrugging slightly. "Oh yeah, and while you're hanging around here right outside our front door… how about coming in to take a look around the Realm of Light? That's what you came here for, right?"

Sora paused for a moment, thinking it over; he then glanced down to the ground, where Riku was still lying unconscious. He looked back over toward the white-robed man for a second, then shook his head.

"Sorry," he said, "I can't… something's happened to Riku. I've gotta get him back to someplace safe and figure out what's wrong before I do anything else."

Sora attempted to lift up his friend, but had a bit of trouble; the other boy was quite a bit taller than he was, and significantly heavier. After struggling for a few seconds, he suddenly found that Riku had vanished from right before his eyes; looking up, he saw that Lea was now carrying him on his shoulder like he weighed nothing at all, heading toward the Gummi Ship and plopping him onto one of the spare seats before stepping back down onto the marble-like path once again.

"Huh… thanks," Sora said, looking a bit confused. Had Axel been _that_ strong before? He had gotten the distinct impression that he was one of the weakest of Organization XIII's members in his previous life as a Nobody, at least out of those he could remember fighting. Or, as it had happened in Axel's case, fighting alongside.

"Hey, don't mention it," he said, walking back toward the door and waving goodbye as Sora walked past him toward the ship. "Really, it's the least I could do, after the whole 'finishing off my Heartless without even realizing it' thing."

For a second, Sora stopped in mid-step; there was one more thing he wanted to ask the former Organization member about before he left.

"Hey, Axel," he said turning back around. "I mean, Lea, or whatever your name is now… what happened to those weird purple marks on your face?"

For a second, the spiky-haired man froze; he turned away slightly and reached up to his face and felt around a bit, though it seemed unlikely that discolorations in his skin could actually be _felt_. He then smiled slightly and turned back toward Sora, shrugging.

"Eh, who knows?", he said, "Probably just a side-effect of the whole not-being-a-Nobody-anymore thing, or something like that. I'm not exactly an expert on that kind of stuff, y'know."

Apparently taking this answer as good enough for him, Sora shrugged slightly and then waved goodbye to the spiky-haired man before climbing into the Gummi Ship and fiddling around with the controls for a moment. Within a few seconds, the engines were up and running once again; apparently, the problems the ship had been having were no longer present, even though it was still well within the zone of light where they had started in the first place. As he glanced out the window at Lea passing back through the Door to Light and into the long-lost realm on the other side, the Gummi Ship lifted off, and before long he had left the golden door and its mysterious inhabitants behind him as he sped off toward the first place he could think of going—the small world where Disney Castle and the surrounding city were located, where he hoped that King Mickey might be able to do something to help Riku.

Several hours later, Sora stood along with King Mickey and several other residents of Disney Castle around Riku's unconscious body, which had been carefully placed in a bed shortly after he had arrived. Mickey and Donald were both hard at work checking his vital signs as well as attempting to detect any sort of harmful magic that might be at work, but so far they had found nothing; as far as either of the two could tell, Riku was perfectly healthy, aside from the whole problem of not being able to wake up from the strange coma-like state he was in.

"Well, gosh, Sora," Mickey said, glancing up a bit sadly toward the boy and shrugging. "I just don't know _what_ happened to Riku. He seems fine physically, and there's no magic involved at all…"

"Yeah," Donald squawked in his barely-comprehensible voice, "Not a trace!"

"I don't know what else to do," Goofy said, scratching his head and holding up an empty potion bottle, its contents already completely drained into Riku's body to absolutely no effect. "He just ain't wakin' up, no matter what we try."

Sora sighed. What could've happened to Riku? Why would he have suddenly passed out, just as they had finally managed to open the Door to Light they had been searching for? No matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn't come up with an answer that made any sense to him; even after all the adventures he had gone on and all the battles he had fought, he really didn't know that much about things like this.

"Wait," Mickey said, suddenly perking up a bit. "I've got an idea! If _we_ can't figure out what's wrong with him… maybe we should take him to Master Yen Sid!"

"Gawrsh, you really think so?", Goofy asked, pulling out another potion bottle from one of his many pockets. "We still haven't tried this'un yet, y'know."

"Aw, put away the potions, ya big palooka!", Donald squawked, swiping at the dog with his feathered hand and causing him to back away slightly. "Master Yen Sid knows _all kinds_ o' magic. If anybody can fix it, it'll be him!"

Sora smiled slightly at the duck and dog's antics; though it really hadn't been that long since the last time he had seen them, he was already beginning to miss Donald and Goofy. Mickey headed in the direction of the Gummi Ship garage, with Donald following shortly behind him. Sora glanced over to Goofy for a moment, then back down to the unconscious silver-haired boy.

"Hey Goofy, think you can help me carry Riku?"

He nodded, then walked over to Riku's feet and grabbed on. Sora did the same, picking him up around the chest, and the two carefully walked out of the room in the same direction that the smaller Disney residents had gone before. In a matter of minutes, Sora and Riku were back in the Gummi Ship once again, though this time joined by Donald, Goofy, and Mickey (making the ship a bit more crowded than usual, as there were only three seats.) Much like they had done during their previous journeys, Donald and Goofy took on the duty of piloting the ship; Sora sat back in one of the seats along with Mickey, while Riku was strapped to the third seat so that he would stay safely in one place during the whole flight. After a few minutes of Chip and Dale checking up on the ship's systems and making sure all of the Gummi Blocks that composed it were still attached correctly, they were finally cleared for takeoff, and the Gummi Ship rose up into the blue sky above Disney Castle, speeding off in search of Yen Sid's mysterious tower that never seemed to be in the same place twice.


	4. The Wizard's Tower

**What Lies Beyond the Light**

**Chapter 3  
**_~ The Wizard's Tower ~_

"Master Yen Sid!", Mickey called, knocking on the front door of the tower once again in an attempt to get an answer out of the old wizard. "Master Yen Sid! I'm here with Sora and Riku!"

Donald stood by the king's side, craning his neck to stare up the side of the tower in an attempt to see if he could spot the blue-robed old man through one of the windows, to no avail. Sora and Goofy were standing not far away beside the Gummi Ship, while Riku was still inside, lying unconscious on one of the seats where the others had left him. A few minutes passed, and there was no response; apparently, either Yen Sid was tremendously busy with something or he was not home at all.

"Is that door locked?", Sora asked, walking over to where Mickey was standing. "If it isn't, why can't we just walk on in?"

"Gawrsh, Sora, wouldn't that be kinda like trass… truss… er, trespassin'?"

The spiky-haired boy sighed and crossed his arms; he waited a few more seconds before speaking up once again.

"Well, maybe," he said, glancing back toward Goofy for a second. "But… how're we gonna figure out what's wrong with Riku if we just sit around out here?"

"I'm sure Master Yen Sid'll come down before too long," Mickey said, turning around and smiling up at Sora in his usual optimistic way. "I mean, he's probably just real busy with somethin' right now, that's all."

As if right on cue, there was the sound of an explosion from the top of the tower; Sora gasped and looked up immediately, catching a glimpse of a fist-sized burst of dark energy erupting from a newly-formed hole in the side of the tower's wall as fragments of stone scattered down all around them. Mickey immediately summoned his Keyblade, its appearance exactly like Sora's but with the colors reversed, and tapped the door with it, causing its lock to undo itself from within and the door itself to swing open with a loud creak.

"Hey, wait for us!", Goofy yelled, calling forth his magical shield in a flash and charging in after him. Donald grumbled a bit and then did the same, leaving Sora alone on the outside of the tower, just staring upward at the hole left behind by the blast with his mouth hanging open.

He shook his head and then glanced at his feet for a moment before summoning his own Keyblade and following after them, his longer stride allowing him to catch up with Donald and Goofy pretty quickly, though Mickey's blinding speed still left him in the dust. The mouse king didn't simply run up the stairs, he _flew_ up them, bouncing off of the walls and swinging off of the bannisters as he ascended rapidly to the top of the tower and left both his bodyguards and Sora behind.

"Sheesh," Sora said, glancing to Donald and Goofy for a second before pulling ahead of them in his charge up the stairs. "I never noticed how fast that guy was before…"

"Well, whaddya expect?", Donald said, "King Mickey's been trainin' to use a Keyblade since before _you_ were even born!"

"That's right," Goofy added, "You sure are strong, Sora, but you've still got lots o' learnin' to do if you're ever gonna catch up with him!"

The boy groaned a bit, then picked up his pace even more, leaving the others behind as he charged up the last set of stairs before the highest reaches of the tower when Yen Sid's study was located… at least, assuming that the old master hadn't changed the place's layout again in the brief time that had passed since his last visit. Before long, he had reached the door to the wizard's study, which was already wide open with Mickey standing, Keyblade held in a defensive stance, just a few feet inside.

"Mickey! What's going on with—"

As soon as he got a clear look at the room, Sora froze, not even managing to get his full sentence out. Standing on the far side of the circular room, next to the window, was Yen Sid, his eyes even wider than usual and the seemingly-permanent scowl on his face giving way slightly to a worried expression; the hole in the wall was just a foot to his left, looking as if it was aimed to miss on purpose but not by much. What shocked Sora, however, was the identity of the other man in the room with the old wizard—deeply tanned skin, pointed ears, a bald head, a silvery beard, and those same clothes… it could be none other than Xehanort himself.

"Xehanort!", Sora yelled, lunging into the room and readying his Keyblade for battle as the old man turned away from Yen Sid to face him. "Don't even think about hurting Master Yen Sid!"

The old man just smirked slightly and let out a short, gravelly chuckle.

"Ah, if it isn't young Sora," he said, crossing his hands behind his back as he always did and taking a step toward the newcomer to the room. "And so soon after our _last_ meeting… I hadn't been expecting to see you again for quite some time."

"Don't make a single move!", Donald shouted, bursting into the room with magical energy already crackling around his staff. He was followed shortly afterward by Goofy, hunching over a bit and brandishing his shield in his usual stance.

"Yeah," the dog said, furrowing his brows and bracing himself. "Just stay right where yer standin', mean-lookin' old feller!"

"Donald! Goofy!", Mickey said, turning toward them and looking a bit surprised. "Careful! This isn't just any old man… he's Xehanort!"

The old man just watched, smiling slightly; apparently, he found the antics of the four somewhat amusing, though he would have preferred that they give him a show some other time when he was not busy with more pressing matters.

"Yes… your friend the King gives sound advice," he said, removing one hand from behind his back and waving it around a bit for emphasis, as he had always done. "I would suggest you heed his warnings… and do not meddle in affairs of which you have no part in."

Sora clenched his teeth and gripped his Keyblade even more tightly than before, unconsciously shifting his feet into a more aggressive stance. He paused for just a moment, then asked the first question that came to mind.

"What do _you_ want with Master Yen Sid, anyway?"

"Oh, nothing much," Xehanort answered, "I was simply seeking information… things have changed a bit since my return, you see, and I thought that perhaps a fellow Keyblade Master from days gone by might have some answers as to why."

"And as I told you before," Yen Sid said, speaking up for the first time, "I do not possess the answers you so desperately seek, Master Xehanort."

Xehanort turned and paced toward the table, the only object between him and Yen Sid; the smile faded from his face as he stared up into the taller wizard's eyes, as if he might bore through into his mind and find the answers himself that way.

"You know far more than you let on," Xehanort said, one hand outstretched in a pose that Mickey and Sora both recognized. "And I _will_ get my answers… one way or another."

With a flash of energy, Xehanort's menacing-looking gray Keyblade appeared in his hand. Sora and Mickey quickly crossed the room and stood on either side of Yen Sid, holding up their own Keyblades to block any incoming attacks; Donald and Goofy blocked the stairs, the duck's staff glowing with energy as he prepared to cast a rather powerful spell if Xehanort made even the slightest move.

"You can't handle all of us at once, Xehanort," Sora said, glaring at the orange-eyed man. "No matter how powerful you are."

There was a long pause as the three Keyblade-wielders stared each other down, Mickey and Sora's near-identical blades interposing themselves between Xehanort and Yen Sid across the table while the wizard himself simply stood still and watched. Finally, it was Xehanort himself who broke the silence, dematerializing his Keyblade and returning his hand to its usual position behind his back as he turned and walked away from his two opponents.

"Perhaps not," he said, pacing back and forth across the room as he spoke. "I've grown old… though eleven years have passed without it aging a single day, this body is still far too frail for the sort of battle you young Keybearers might subject it to."

He raised one hand with fingers outstretched, flexing each of them in a way that a man of his age probably should not have been able to do. Instantly, a portal of swirling darkness appeared behind Xehanort, and he took one swift step backward into it before disappearing, the dark portal vanishing into a few stray wisps of dark energy behind him as he went. Donald lowered his staff and let out a sigh of relief, while Goofy held his shield to his side and stood up straight once again. Mickey and Sora paused and glanced to each other for a moment before each of them unsummoned his Keyblade and relaxed his stance.

"It was… quite fortunate that the four of you arrived when you did," Yen Sid said, taking a few steps away from the window and sitting back down at his desk. "I cannot imagine what may have transpired if I had been forced into combat with such an opponent…"

"Well, ya won't have t'worry about that now," Goofy said, taking a few steps forward. As he reached Yen Sid's table, he removed his hat briefly and bowed before the wizard, then continued. "I'll bet that Xehanort feller ain't gonna be showin' his face around here again for a while."

"Yeah!", Donald squawked, webbed feet slapping against the floor as he approached the table as well. "We sure showed him!"

"I don't know… he seemed too confident," Mickey said, frowning slightly. "He might've backed out of this fight, but we'd still better be careful."

Sora just stared at the table in front of him, his eyes focusing in on a pile of ancient scrolls, all rolled up so that their contents were out of sight. Mickey had mentioned that Yen Sid found out about the sealed door to the true Realm of Light from a scroll, and briefly wondering if one of these was the one he was talking about. It was then that he remembered the whole reason why they had come to Yen Sid's tower in the first place—the strange unconscious state that Riku had fallen into shortly after they had opened the Door to Light.

"Master Yen Sid," Sora said, stepping forward and placing both of his hands on the table, "Me and Riku… we opened the Door to the Light."

"Ah… well done," the old wizard said, interlacing his fingers atop the table. "But where is Riku? And why have the two of you returned so soon?"

"Riku… something's happened to him. He passed out right after we opened the door, and none of us could figure out what was wrong, so…"

The old wizard stood up once again, pacing over to his window and glancing outside for a moment. He saw the Gummi Ship, still exactly as Sora and company had left it; presumably, Riku was inside this vehicle, safe from any Heartless or other threats that might approach. He then walked around to the other side of the table and addressed the boy.

"So you decided to bring him to me," he said, turning to look out the window once again. "Riku is safely hidden away inside that Gummi Ship, correct?"

"That's right," Mickey answered, "D'you want us to bring him up here?"

"No, there should be no need for that," Yen Sid said, gazing out the window. "I believe I already know what must have happened… and there is nothing I can do for him."

Sora's hands _slammed_ the table. He had lost Riku too many times now; he wasn't going to let something like this happen again.

"What do you mean, you can't do anything for him?"

"Precisely what I said, young Keybearer. Riku's condition is one for which I can do nothing… what he needs now is not some magical cure, but simply rest."

"Well, what _happened_ to him?", Mickey asked, now looking a bit confused.

"I cannot say for sure… but I believe the answer lies in the fact that it happened immediately upon opening the Door to Light. When a dam bursts, water rushes out… such is true of the doors between realms, as well. The flood of light from that long-sealed realm, pouring out in that moment the door first opened after so many years of being held back, must have overwhelmed the young Master."

Sora blinked. This explanation sort of made sense, but… something about it didn't quite add up.

"How come I'm okay, then? I was there, too… right there beside him! Why Riku and not me?"

"Sora, you are a being of light," Yen Sid said, turning toward the boy. "Though not free of the darkness, your heart has always contained a powerful light that far surpasses its dark side. Riku, on the other hand…"

"He's chosen the middle path," Mickey chimed in, thinking back to his adventures with the silver-haired boy. "His light and his darkness, hand in hand... that's Riku's power."

Yen Sid nodded slightly, while Sora still looked slightly confused.

"Indeed. While you, Sora, are primarily a being of light… Riku's heart relies on a balance between the two forces. Therefore, when the door was opened, that balance was disrupted and he could be overtaken by the sudden outpouring of light."

Sora scratched his head and, once again, stared down at his feet. It made sense that someone whose heart was half-dark might have trouble with a sudden blast of light, but on the other hand, he had stood close to the Door to Darkness more than a year ago without any ill effects. And if that was all that had happened, why did Riku look terrified right before he lost consciousness?

"So… how can I help Riku?", Sora asked, pushing his questions and suspicions aside and focusing on getting his friend back to normal. "You said he needs to rest… is that it?"

"Hmm… yes, an extended period of rest will be necessary… but _where_ he is left to rest is also important. If his heart has been momentarily thrown off balance, then a world where darkness and light exist in balance at all times would be the ideal place to leave him."

"A world… where light and darkness are always balanced?"

Sora paused for a moment, then immediately realized what that meant.

"But isn't that… right here?"

"Indeed, this world where my tower currently resides exists in between light and darkness," Yen Sid said, pacing away from the window and back toward where Sora was standing. "However… Xehanort will surely return here again. Leaving Riku in this tower would be most unwise, given the current situation."

"Well," Mickey said, "Couldn't ya just move this place somewhere else?"

Yen Sid shook his head.

"It would do us no good. With Xehanort's knowledge of magic and the ways of the Keyblade, he would undoubtedly find this tower in time, no matter where upon this vast world it may be."

Goofy scratched his head and gave the wizard a confused glance.

"Then where're we gonna put Riku, if we can't leave 'im on this world?"

"Though he cannot stay here, Master Riku will indeed find his rest somewhere on this world," Yen Sid answered, waving one of his hands and conjuring up an image of the entire world that hovered in front of him, surrounded in clouds of shimmering magical smoke. He pointed out a small floating island, where his tower was currently located, and then spun the globe slightly to a larger landmass. "Though you may not have been aware of this fact before now… this world is quite unlike the small, fragmented ones found within the realm you call home."

As the wizard pointed at it with one finger, the image of the globe was replaced by a closer view, showing a town sprawling across a mountainous landscape. Railroad tracks connected it to other towns in the distance, crossing vast plains and winding around mountains as they went; one set of tracks even found its way to the continent's nearest coast, where sandy beaches stretched out for miles and all sorts of shops and vendor's carts were set up along the boardwalk. It took him a few seconds to recognize the resemblance, but eventually Sora remembered that what he was seeing now was a place he had been once or twice before.

"This is… Twilight Town, isn't it?"

Yen Sid just nodded in response, letting Sora gaze at the magical image for another few seconds before dismissing it with a wave of his hand, just like how he had caused it to appear before.

"That's right," Mickey said, remembering the last time he had visited the peaceful little town; he had momentarily forgotten just how close it was to the current location of Yen Sid's tower. "That Gummi Ship of ours should still have the coordinates, so we'll be able to get Riku over there in no time!"

"In that case," Yen Sid said, "I will not hold you here any longer. Sora, Donald, Goofy… proceed to Twilight Town whenever you are ready."

Sora nodded slightly and then took off back down the stairs, followed shortly afterward by Donald and Goofy. Mickey hung back for a while, just knowing somehow that Yen Sid would have further information for him; the old wizard always seemed to do things this way, as if certain bits of his knowledge were meant only for Keyblade Masters that he knew and trusted—a position that Sora had, so far, not yet achieved.

Yen Sid walked back toward the window, gazing out into the distance. He would surely have to move his tower (and the floating island beneath it) to another location now that Xehanort had returned in his complete form once again, and ideas for new places he could hide it away were already coming to mind. Eventually, he noticed that Mickey's presence had not yet left the room, turning to face him once again.

"Mickey… I chose not to speak of this to Sora," he began, confirming the mouse's suspicions, "But the girl has progressed remarkably, even considering her use of that room where time is distorted… at this rate, she could be ready to undergo the Mark of Mastery exam in a matter of days."

"The girl?", Mickey asked, momentarily forgetting exactly who Yen Sid was talking about. "Oh! You mean Kairi?"

Yen Sid nodded.

"Sora would demand to see her if I were to so much as mention her name… which would no doubt distract him from the task at hand. I'm sure you understand my decision to keep Kairi's training a secret to him."

Mickey just nodded in response, understanding Yen Sid's concerns; he then frowned slightly. Though he knew that Sora and Kairi would both probably be distracted from their tasks as bearers of the Keyblade if they were allowed to see each other so soon, he still felt bad about keeping two kids who seemed so close to each other separated all the time. Despite this concern, he said nothing; Yen Sid had decided on his plans to counter Xehanort shortly after finding out what the rogue Keyblade Master was plotting, and could not be swayed from the path he had chosen by mere words.

"Soon, Kairi will join Riku and yourself as a Keyblade Master… assuming Sora shows the Mark of Mastery as well, we need only acquire three more."

"Three more," Mickey mumbled. Once again, thoughts of the past rapidly flashed through his mind. "That's Terra, Aqua, and Ven… right?"

"That was the plan," Yen Sid said, walking over to his desk and creating a cloud of magical smoke over its surface once again. Slowly, an image of a blue-haired woman wielding a metallic Keyblade appeared within the image, walking through a dark landscape as the eyes of Heartless peered out at her from every crack. "I have discerned that Master Aqua still lives, though she is lost deep within the Realm of Darkness… and, as we have recently determined, the heart and consciousness of Ventus both presently sleep within Sora, awaiting the day when they may safely return to his body once more."

"And Terra… you still haven't found any sign of him?"

"Unfortunately, I have not. When Xehanort's Heartless and Nobody were both destroyed, Terra's stolen heart and body were lost as well… and so far I cannot confirm whether or not he has returned along with Xehanort himself."

For nearly a minute, the room was silent; Mickey and Yen Sid each watched the magical image on the surface of the wizard's desk, seeing Aqua near-effortlessly destroying several Heartless with a single blow each. An enormous one attacked her from behind, but before its attack could connect her body was surrounded by a barrier of translucent purplish energy, which erupted outward in all directions and tore apart any Heartless foolish enough to stand too close.

"Looks like Aqua's doing pretty well on her own," Mickey said, glancing away from the images for a moment. "So should we try to figure out how to help Ven first?"

"No. Even if we found a method to separate his heart and soul from Sora, his body has been hidden away in a place beyond my sight. As Aqua was the last of the three to go missing, I suspect that she will be the key to reviving him… so we must come to her aid first."

Yen Sid glanced out the window as the sound of the Gummi Ship outside activating reached his ears, spotting the brightly-colored vehicle rising up into the sky; Sora must have waited to see if Mickey was coming along for all that time before finally leaving to complete the task he had been given. A few seconds passed and it was already beyond the old wizard's sight, zipping off to the south at incredible speeds. A few minutes passed, with Mickey continuing to watch Aqua's movements inside the dark realm where she had wandered for eleven long years; eventually, however, Yen Sid waved one of his hands slightly and dismissed the image.

"So somebody's gotta go into the Realm of Darkness and find her…"

"That's right," Yen Sid said, turning to face the mouse king. "The Realm of Darkness is a dangerous place, even for a wielder of the Keyblade. However, this may be an opportunity for us to accomplish two things at once."

"Two things? Whaddya mean?"

Yen Sid remained silent. On the floor below them, there was the sound of a door opening and then quickly shutting again, followed by a few light footsteps against the stone floor. This could only mean one thing: that Kairi had emerged from the room where she had been undergoing her training.


	5. A Place to Rest

**What Lies Beyond the Light**

**Chapter 4  
**_~ A Place to Rest ~_

Somewhere deep within the Realm of Light, there was a large circular room which seemed to rise up hundreds of feet above its floor, with many golden thrones rising up along its walls. There was no ceiling, only an open sky; sunlight poured directly down into the round room, causing flickering images to reflect off of every curve and corner of the ornate seats. The highest of the many thrones were filled by beings in long white robes, each leaning against their throne of choice in a variety of different manners; of the fourteen thrones that had been elevated beyond the rest, only four were currently empty.

There was a brief flash of light that illuminated the room even more, and a split-second later another robed figure had appeared, lounging a bit lazily in the highest of the many thrones. The others all looked up upon his arrival, their faces showing a variety of reactions.

"I've come bearing news," the spiky-haired man who had recently joined the rest said, waving one hand a bit in the air. "The door that once sealed this realm… well, I'll just say it's not sealing anything now. A couple of kids just managed to open the thing."

An older man with long, dirty blonde hair scoffed at this news.

"The Door to the Light, opened by mere _children?_ I cannot believe such a thing without seeing it with my own eyes."

"It _is_ difficult to believe," another man said, crossing his arms. "Perhaps we should follow Even's lead and visit the site of the door ourselves."

"Yes," a smaller man with blue hair added in. "It's true that something about this realm has changed in the past day, something about the air feels different… but I would prefer to see for myself if the door has indeed been opened."

The spiky-haired man shrugged, slouching down even further in his throne before speaking.

"Suit yourselves. The door's wide open whether you believe me or not… go ahead and take a look for yourselves if you want, I'm not gonna stop you."

Several of the white-robed figures leaned forward slightly in their seats, glancing up at the lazy redhead for just a moment before diving off of the edge of their thrones one by one. For a few seconds, it appeared that each of them would slam face-first into the floor; instead of colliding with the rapidly-approaching white stone below them, however, each one suddenly swerved in midair, flying parallel to the floor until they had reached the room's nearest exit.

From his perch on the highest throne, Lea just laughed and shook his head.

"It'd be so much easier to just use a Gate," he said to nobody in particular. "Gotta admit, though… that flying-down-the-thrones trick looks like a lot of fun. I'll have to try it sometime."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy reached Twilight Town in the span of only a few minutes, their ship touching down atop the roof of a sturdy-looking building. The three left the Gummi Ship's cockpit and looked around for a few minutes, quickly finding that the city seemed a lot bigger than it had been the last time they had visited—each of them knew this wasn't the case, but it certainly seemed that way now that they had seen the entire place from above, rather than simply walking through a few small parts of the town on foot.

There was a period of silence as all three stared out across the city frozen in what seemed to be an eternal sunset, wondering exactly what the next step was from there. After glancing to each of his companions, Goofy was the first to speak up.

"So… where're we gonna put Riku?"

"Good question," Donald squawked, attempting to stand on the tips of his toes to get a better look at the city around him, though that really didn't help much. "I don't remember half o' these buildings from last time…"

"Well… I know there's a few kids I've met before around here somewhere," Sora said, looking out across the city and trying to find some familiar landmark from which they could start their search. "You think maybe they could look after him for a while?"

Goofy looked confused for a moment, apparently not remembering who it was that Sora was referring to. He glanced at Donald for any hints, but the duck just shrugged, not remembering them at all himself.

"I dunno, Sora," Goofy said, "Ya really think it's a good idea to just leave 'im with a couple of regular kids like that?"

"Yeah," Donald added in, "What if somebody like Xehanort comes after 'im?"

Sora crossed his arms.

"Well, Yen Sid said this would be a peaceful place for Riku to rest," he said, glancing back at the Gummi Ship for a moment. "And it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere… so it should be safe. Why would Xehanort take time out from his plans to come _here_, anyway?"

Donald grumbled a bit, but couldn't think of much to say in response; he really didn't have any reason to think Xehanort would actually come to Twilight Town searching for someone he couldn't possibly know was there, he had just blurted out the first of his worries that came to mind. Meanwhile, Sora stared out over the city below them, eventually spotting something he recognized—the sandlot where the local kids often hung out and played a variety of games. He pointed it out to Donald and Goofy, then took off running off the edge of the building, leaping down and landing on the roof of a shorter building below. He took another flying leap and grabbed onto a streetlamp as he began to fall, swinging around it several times to slow his descent before finally touching down on the cobblestone streets below.

"Whoa!"

"That was _awesome!_"

Sora's descent from the rooftops quickly caught the attention of some of the local kids, who just stared in amazement as a spiky-haired boy they had never seen before came flying out of nowhere and spinning around a lamppost toward the ground. He was followed shortly afterward by Goofy, who took a somewhat less acrobatic path down, and Donald, who simply jumped off the edge of the building and slowed his fall using some form of gravity-altering magic. The small crowd of children that had developed in the street around them seemed to almost be more amazed by Sora's companions than his way of getting down from a building; it was probably the first time they had ever seen travelers from another world before, or at the very least the first time they had seen those of another species.

"You guys aren't from around here, are you?"

Sora laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head.

"Ehh… you could say that," he said, smiling slightly. "We've been through here before, but we're not too familiar with the place… could you kids show us how to get to the sandlot from here?"

Several kids began pointing in various directions all leading toward the side of town where the open space was located, each giving their version of the best way to get there. As directions given to those with no familiarity of a place by those who had lived there for years tended to be, none of this made much sense to Sora and friends, who just stood there attempting to interrupt the group of children for several seconds before giving up and waiting for them to finish.

"Thanks," Sora said. "But I'm really looking for a few kids who live around here. Do you know where I could find Hayner, Pence, and Olette? They're around my age, I think."

"Three kids your age, huh?", one of the boys said, thinking for a second. He then pointed to the very building that Sora's Gummi Ship was currently using as a parking space, causing Sora to turn his head slightly and see just what the building was for the first time. "They're probably still in school right now."

"Yeah," another one chimed in, "If you went over to the sandlot to find 'em, you'd be sittin' around there by yourself for a while. School doesn't let out for another hour."

"Oh…"

Sora turned toward Donald and Goofy for a second, then sighed. He walked over to a bench outside the school's front entrance, taking a long look at the old brick school building in front of him before taking a seat.

"Well… I guess we might as well wait for them here, then."

Along one of the many dark streets of the city known only as "The World That Never Was," a portal of swirling purple-and-black darkness suddenly opened and Xehanort stepped through it, his hands held behind his back as always. Despite his casual appearance, however, the old man was cautious about entering this place; in this city, like all places within the Realm of Darkness, it was impossible for those with dark powers to give orders to the insect-like Heartless, which meant that the creatures would undoubtedly flock to him in an attempt to seize his own heart. While Heartless were drawn to hearts of all sorts, those with strong hearts tended to attract more of their attention than others, and wielders of the Keyblade in particular stood out as beacons that drew the creatures in hordes like moths to a flame.

A silvery shape darting just out of his sight before disappearing into one of the first-floor windows nearby alerted him to the presence of a second threat—Nobodies still inhabited the houses and skyscrapers that made up the dark city, even now that it had been nearly a month since Organization XIII's downfall. Though the lesser Nobodies once held an unwavering loyalty to Xemnas due to his position as the Organization's leader and the many empty promises he had made to them, Xemnas no longer existed; furthermore, due to the circumstances of his death and the events leading up to it, he had a strong suspicion that they would not take kindly to a mysterious man arriving and claiming to be their leader reborn.

This suspicion was soon confirmed when a group of the silvery-bodied creatures suddenly surrounded him, rising up through portals that had opened in the ground all around him and closed just as soon as their occupants had passed through. Various types of Nobodies were present, all of which had the weapons and specialized armor that the Organization had given them. A Dusk opened its mouth and let out a bizarre screeching roar, while the others remained silent, simply readying their weapons and staring at the old man who had suddenly invaded their home.

"Hmph… Nobodies," he muttered to himself. "I suppose I would never be able to convince you to assist me, if you've already realized just who I am…"

_"That is correct,"_ the mental voice of the massive Berserker Nobody who seemed to be the leader of the group said. _"We sensed your presence the moment you arrived… but you have grown weak since your return, Xemnas."_

Xehanort smirked and removed one hand from behind his back, summoning his Keyblade. Though he likely would not need it to deal with a group of lesser Nobodies, what the Berserker had said was true—whether it was in his prime or under the weakening grasp of old age, Xehanort could not hope to match the sort of power that Xemnas had possessed. This was a situation where there was no such thing as being too careful; unlike Sora and his friends, the Nobodies would not hesitate to push past their fear of Xemnas and cut down the man they believed to be their former leader if given the slightest chance.

_"Is that… a Keyblade?"_

Another Nobody, this one of the Dragoon variety, turned and nodded slightly.

_"I believe so,"_ the creature said to its companions. _"But it is not one I recognize… none of our fallen comrades' reports mention a Keyblade of this design."_

Before the various Nobodies could react, Xehanort suddenly lunged forward, rushing between two Dusks and slashing each of them with the sharp edge of his Keyblade as he passed. The two screeched in pain for just an instant, a splash of blood spurting from their wounded chests before vanishing in midair along with the rest of their distorted bodies. The Dragoon and Berserker grasped their weapons tightly and charged, each of them taking on the stances that their masters within the Organization had taught them years before; Xehanort sidestepped the larger Nobody's attack and then lashed out at the Dragoon with his Keyblade, but his target leaped into the air just in time to avoid the blow. The Berserker turned and aimed a powerful downward swing at Xehanort's head, but he reached up with his free hand and caught the weapon in a show of surprising strength considering his old age. He and the Berserker struggled against each other for a few seconds before the old man released a shockwave of darkness which sent the weapon and its wielder flying backward.

Roaring with fury, the Dragoon dove downward spear-first, hoping to catch Xehanort off guard and deliver a powerful jumping stab straight into him. Unfortunately, the old man's reflexes were a bit too quick for this, and he stepped backward just in time so that the Dragoon's spear embedded itself in the pavement at his feet rather than his head. As his opponent yanked at the weapon in an attempt to dislodge it, Xehanort lashed out with his Keyblade once again, a single blow ending the Dragoon's life.

_"Die, Xemnas! Death to the tyrant!"_

With this battle cry, the Berserker charged forward once again, armor a bit scuffed-up from the blast that had thrown it aside but otherwise unharmed. Xehanort held his Keyblade behind his back and blocked his attacker's first blow, then turned and lashed out with one of his own, forcing the massive Nobody backward slightly when it barely managed to block. Several more Dusks squirmed through the air in Xehanort's direction, but he spun around to face them and nearly sliced each of them in half with a wide swing of his weapon. The Berserker charged, but for the last time—just when it appeared that it would land a solid hit with its heavy sword-like weapon, Xehanort suddenly vanished, reappearing behind the creature in an instant and jabbing his Keyblade into its back. With a heavy _thud_, the Berserker fell to the ground, dropping its weapon and gasping for breath for just a moment before fading away in the way that all dead Nobodies did.

"So," Xehanort said, raising his Keyblade in front of him in a defensive position, "You've seen that even the greatest among you have no hope of defeating me… will you continue to rush headlong into certain destruction, or will you retreat and live out the rest of your empty existences?"

_"You dare call us 'empty?'"_

The mental voice, somewhat surprisingly, came from the lone surviving Dusk of the group, which stood about ten feet away from Xehanort, wiggling in place slightly as it stood. The remaining members of the group moved in near the thin-bodied creature, raising their weapons in a gesture of support.

_"You lied to us,"_ an Assassin said, clashing its spiked gauntlet-like weapons against each other and snarling in its strange audible voice between mental sentences. _"Told us we could not feel, that you were our only hope of regaining a heart!"_

_"You never cared about us,"_ a second Assassin said, _"It was all part of your plan… everything you ever did was for nothing but your own gain."_

_"Whether we have hearts or not,"_ a Samurai said, readying its twin swords, _"It is _you_ who are truly empty, Xemnas."_

Xehanort just let out a short laugh in response. Nothing they had said to him was new or shocking in any way; he was well aware that Xemnas had been using the other Nobodies, even those who had retained their form, as nothing more than tools to complete Kingdom Hearts and carry out his plans. As the group of Nobodies lunged toward him in one final attack, he simply raised his Keyblade in their direction and unleashed a storm of dark bolts, piercing through each of them before his opponents could even clear half the distance that separated them. As the dying Nobodies fell to the ground one by one, Xehanort simply turned away from them and dematerialized his Keyblade, calmly walking off down the street with his hands behind his back as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Well, uh… it's kinda hard to explain," Sora said, pausing a bit as he tried to figure out exactly what he could say about the situation at hand without giving _too_ much away. "But… well… something's happened to my friend Riku, and… could you guys find a place for him to rest for a while so he can get better?"

Hayner raised one eyebrow slightly, not sure exactly what was going on but suspecting that _something_ was fishy. Pence just stood with his mouth open slightly, looking a bit confused; he remembered meeting the mysterious boy who now stood before them once or twice before, but he had never expected him to unexpectedly drop by and ask them for a favor like this. Of the three teenagers, Olette was the only one who didn't seem to be caught off guard by this.

"Sure!", she said, smiling. "Your friend can stay at my house for a while if he wants. My mom knows a little bit of healing magic, so she might even be able to help him recover."

For a moment, Sora was a bit taken aback by this; though he had been to many worlds that were aware of magic, he never expected such an ordinary-seeming place as Twilight Town to have magic-users hiding among the general population. As he thought about it a bit, it was probably the fact that the girl had mentioned it so casually that shocked him—even on worlds overflowing with magic, there seemed to be a certain mystery about it, and no fifteen-year-old he had ever met had simply offered magical healing without even batting an eye like that.

"Aww, man," Pence groaned, "Just when we finally saved up enough for that watermelon, too… they'll probably be out already if we wait until tomorrow."

"Forget the watermelon," Hayner said, turning to Olette. "You really sure you want to let some guy spend the night just like that? You've never even met this… Ricky, or whatever his name was."

"But we _have_ met Sora," she countered, "And I don't think he'd be asking us for help like this if he didn't really need it."

Hayner shrugged.

"If you say so. Still, not my fault if Ricky ends up being a total creep."

"His name's not Ricky, it's _Riku,_" Sora corrected, "And he's not some creep, he's one of my best friends! You've gotta believe me here…"

For a moment, Olette pulled the two boys aside, the three of them huddling together and talking things over amongst themselves without any further involvement from Sora. Though their voices were kept low enough that he couldn't make out much of anything beyond a few stray words, there seemed to be repeated mentions of Olette's mother and gestures which seemed to suggest that anyone trying anything suspicious around her would end up being pummeled. He briefly wondered if the girl's mom really _could_ take Riku in a fight; what kind of terrifying woman was she, if all three of the friends seemed to agree that she wouldn't have trouble no matter what sort of person Riku turned out to be?

"Okay," Pence said, breaking off from the huddle and walking back toward Sora. "We've decided… that we'll help this Riku guy out after all."

"But there's one condition," Hayner said, stepping forward and pointing one finger dramatically as if he was about to drop some sort of world-shaking statement on Sora that might force him to reconsider his decision to bring Riku to the three. Moments later, however, Olette stepped forward as well, her words quickly destroying any illusion of severity regarding the situation.

"You have to come with us to get the watermelon after we take your friend to my house," she said, pulling out her purse and counting up the diamond-shaped munny coins inside it. "We'll even let you have some. Riku, too, if he's feeling well."

"Where is Riku, anyway?", Pence asked, glancing around but not managing to find anyone else he didn't recognize. "I don't see another guy around here anywhere."

"Oh," Sora said, pausing for a second before remembering that Donald and Goofy had moved the unconscious boy from the Gummi Ship to an empty bench nearby, inwardly sighing with relief that he wouldn't have to go climbing buildings right in front of the three—or worse, explain the Gummi Ship to them if they happened to see it. "He's, um… well, I kind of left him on a bench over there. He's not really awake right now, so… we're gonna have to carry him."

Hayner, Pence, and Olette followed shortly behind as Sora walked over to the bench where the silver-haired boy was still lying, perfectly still aside from his shallow breathing. Donald and Goofy peeked at the approaching group from between the leaves and branches of a large bush they were hiding in, ducking a bit lower as Sora approached so as to not reveal their presence to the other three kids. While Sora was a bit reluctant to explain the existence of other worlds to people he met, Donald and Goofy were downright obsessive about it, believing that they must always keep their alien origins secret despite the fact that most worlds' inhabitants were well aware of the possibility of inter-world travel even if they were not actually capable of doing so themselves.

"Whoa," Hayner said, stepping back a bit upon seeing the unconscious Riku. "He's pretty tall… how old is this guy, anyway?"

"Sixteen," Sora said, coming to stop right next to the bench. "He's had a crazy growth spurt this past year… can you believe he was only five-foot-one when he was my age?"

"Wow," Pence said, eyes widening slightly. "I'd say… I don't think I've _ever_ grown a full eight inches in one year."

"Come on, you guys," Olette said, "You can worry about how tall he is later… right now, we've got some work to do. My house is pretty far from here, remember?"

Hayner and Pence both groaned simultaneously, realizing that the task of carrying the boy was almost certainly going to fall to them.

"Lemme guess," Hayner said, "We're gonna have to carry him all that way?"

"Not all the way," Olette corrected him. "You and Pence carry him until we're halfway there, then Sora and I can carry him the rest of the way."

The two boys nodded and smiled slightly in approval of this compromise, then went to work at attempting to heft the unconscious Riku off of the bench where he was currently sitting. While Hayner was somewhat athletic, Pence had a bit of extra weight to carry even without supporting half of Riku, and both of the boys were weighed down by the load of heavy books inside their school backpacks. After much struggling, the two decided that they weren't getting anywhere and stepped aside.

"Hey, Sora," Hayner said, removing the straps of his backpack from his arms and dropping it to the dusty ground at his feet. "If we're carrying Riku, you're gonna have to carry these for us."

Pence removed his backpack as well, placing it on the ground next to Hayner's and shrugging.

"Yeah… there's no way we're gonna be able to carry this guy with these things on."

Sora just nodded in response, putting on one of the backpacks and carrying the other one in his arms. He briefly thought that it might be easier to just get Donald and Goofy to come out of hiding to help out, but the two were adamant about not revealing themselves to the people of Twilight Town again; it looked like taking turns carrying Riku, like the three locals suggested, was going to be about the only option he had.

Around an hour later, the group of four (plus one unconscious) had finally reached Olette's place of residence, a fairly ordinary-looking brick house in one of Twilight Town's residential districts with a few flower-boxes located under the front windows. While she and Sora held on to the unconscious boy, Pence stepped forward and knocked on the door, and within about a minute it opened from the inside.

"Err… hi, Mom," Olette said, nervously laughing a bit at the sight of her mother's face.

The older, blonde-haired woman stopped just short of greeting her daughter and friends as she spotted the unfamiliar spiky-haired boy standing alongside them… and then, glancing down a bit with widening eyes, the unconscious silver-haired boy whose weight he was helping to support. She frowned slightly and put her hands on her hips, glaring slightly at Olette.

"Olette, what have I _told_ you about bringing strange boys home?"

Olette's eyes widened a bit; if she had not been busy holding up half of Riku's considerable weight, she probably would have flailed her arms a bit and backed away in a panic, knowing how her mom could get about these kinds of situations.

"He's not a stranger! This is my friend Sora," she said, glancing to him and pausing for a bit in an attempt to figure out just how to explain the situation when even she didn't know exactly what was going on. "We met over the summer. He's… from out of town, and something happened to his friend Riku, and—"

Her mother just rolled her eyes slightly and sighed, stepping aside to give Olette and Sora enough room to get through the door with Riku in hand.

"You don't have to explain everything to me right now," she said, walking off into the house. "That boy, Riku… he's not in great shape, I can tell that much. Go ahead and bring him in… we'll talk about this later."


End file.
